"I work for a company that has applied for and received the PPP grant money as a small non-essential business in Anacortes, WA. This came at an ideal time for the owner as he was unable to pay his employees for the pay period prior to and during the week of the shut-down. In the weeks following, he continued to operate “under the radar” and told the employees they would only be paid if they continued to work for him even though the company had been shut down by law enforcement.The owner has since opened back up full force under his own justified reasoning that his landscaping business is “preventing spoilization” and is therefore considered “essential”. Understandable to some degree, but I find it curious that these jobs include new installations and improvements to his $4M estate.It appears the owner has applied for and used this money as a means to keep his already failing business afloat and his property improved with essentially free labor. He continues to put his crews to work on non-essential projects with no solid (certainly not enforced) safety measures or readily available PPE.How does it make sense that a non-essential business can continue to operate as usual and get paid to pay workers that shouldn’t be working and not pay employees that chose to follow the order. And then have it all forgiven because he has maintained his employee head count (by means of replacing those who chose to stay home).It’s a shame that so many compliant businesses are struggling while this non-compliant company will likely breeze through this, financially better off that when this all started, while putting numerous (75+) people at risk- most that don’t realize they have a choice." -
The aforementioned complaint was filed in Anacortes, Washington on Wednesday April 22, 2020 with L&I covid19complaints@lni.wa.gov against ProScapes, Inc. saying Non-essential business is open. Email address given was and phone number given was .